Facebook is under attack in the UK because it failed to supply information needed which might have prevented the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby.
Michael Adebowale, one of the killers of the soldier, had 11 Facebook accounts but GCHQ has only seen six of those despite requests.
A parliamentary committee said yesterday that Adebowale used Facebook to communicate with a Yemeni Al Qaeda operative but the social network’s auto warning system didn’t register the conversations.
The sister of Lee Rigby claims Facebook has “blood on their hands”. The committee said Facebook had failed to turn over all the information GCHQ requested.
But it’s not just Facebook that was criticised in the parliamentary report – Twitter, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Blackberry don’t accept the UK has any jurisdiction over content.
PM David Cameron has joined in on criticising Facebook but this morning a former senior civil servant at MI6 said that policing Facebook is “almost impossible” because of the amount of data posted on a daily basis.
Facebook said it doesn’t allow terrorist content on its site and stops people using the social networking site for such purposes. The problem appears to be that the US legal jurisdiction prevents US companies from sharing this type of information with foreign powers.
